In a small town called Matersville, population 2,700, people know each other by first name and on most days you can hear a pin drop on the only main road. I’ve lived here all of my life and nothing exciting has ever happened really. The climax of my exhilarating day is driving home from school and having the Minnesota breeze flowing through my hair. The only thing that keeps me alive here is my music. Music makes me a much more mature person. Music feeds my soul, pushes me to places I never imagined I could go, and always keeps my mind filled with dreams and aspirations. But, I never dreamed just how important music would be to me and the people of my tight-knit community. It all started on a normal November’s day, the leaves were falling, the wind was blowing, and everyone was attending to their daily routine. As usual the town’s high school let out at about 2:00 and all the students were eager or probably more desperate to leave their Alcatraz for the weekend. I, being one of the 75 seniors graduating in the summer, was as happy as a kid in a candy shop, and was also one of the first to be as far away from Satan’s dwelling as I could, because I got to drive myself home from school. Our school is good in that way, we have the freedom and responsibility that comes with being able to transport ourselves back and forth every day. On this particular day, I took a different way home than usual, simply because I could. This route, although still 5 minutes in length, had captivating scenery with corn stalks that whisper words of advice and mountains that wink when you pass them by. During my short drive, I noticed that in front of me was a friend from school, Caroline. She was a senior too, and I recognized her from my AP Calculus class. We talked once in awhile, about math or about the football team, (I’m the starting fullback,) but never really much more than that. While I was thinking about all of these different things, it happened. Her car started to spin around as fast as a racecar would on the track; it was as if it were a scene out of Fast and Furious. At that exact moment for the first time in my life, I was completely powerless while watching Caroline’s car spin out of control. I selflessly leaped out of my car and ran over to where Caroline’s car landed, and relentlessly pried her door open until I could pull her from the wrangled car; but it was too late. The paramedics pronounced her dead upon their arrival and went onto to say that it appeared that she was texting while driving. In the days following, the morale in Matersville was extremely low; people had no idea what to do with themselves, including me. All I could do was replay that normal ride home in my head and think to myself, “You could’ve done something, anything, to stop her from crashing.” I was practically in a vegetative state for days; shutting out the world in the hopes that I could avoid the reality that Caroline really was gone. My heart was broken remembering her optimistic attitude about everything and her bubbly personality that always made my day a little bit better. They always say that good, gracious people get great gifts and grandeur in return, but why didn’t that happen for Caroline? What could she have possibly done in her 17 years on this planet that deserved for her life to be snatched away from her so early and suddenly, in such a horrific way? I asked questions like these to my mom in the days following Caroline’s unexpected death, and the conversation would always be the same. I would say, “Mom, why? Why her and why now?” and my mom would say, “Why are you asking me these questions that I obviously don’t have the answers to? She’s gone because God decided it was her time to go and that’s all I can say about it.” All my mom’s discussions did was make me even more confused about Caroline’s death and got my mind thinking more and more about how unfair it was. A few more days past and nothing seemed to get better in town; it was